Insecticon clone
Insecticon clones are a type of mass-produced drone. The Insecticons have the ability to make clones of themselves (sometimes called InsecticlonesJapanese & English Insecticon "Clone Army" bios at e-hobby) out of scrap metal."A Plague of Insecticons" They have abilities similar to those of the Insecticons themselves, but lack the intelligence and individual initiative needed to be effective without the guidance of the Insecticons. If the beams controlling them are interrupted, they will disintegrate. Named Insecticlones include Shothole, Salvo, and Zaptrap. History Pre-MUX History A Plague of Insecticons On the island of Bali, the Insecticons were feeding off of human farmland when confronted by Skyfire, Windcharger, Brawn, Bumblebee, and Spike Witwicky. Being outnumbered, the Insecticons created clones to defend themselves. Bombshell destroyed a combine with an "insectishell". Shrapnel and KickbackThe dialog suggests Shrapnel is alone creating the clones with "his" clone beams, but the animation shows clone beams coming from Kickback's antennae as well. then created clones from the resulting scrap metal using "electronic clone beams". With the clones, the Insecticons were now more than a match for the four Autobots who then fled into the cover of the crops. Later, after the Insecticons teamed up with Megatron, the Insecticons left their clones in the control of Megatron to help take over an oil refinery. The Insecticons themselves went to prevent the Autobots from following them. The Autobots arrived at the refinery anyway and there was a battle. The clones had Bumblebee and Spike surrounded when Megatron used his force field to interrupt Shrapnel's control beam. The clones crumbled. Quest for Survival The Insecticons teamed up with Megatron once again and created a vast number of new clones to serve as the Insecticon Army. The Insecticons and their clones feasted on farmland as a way to harvest energy which was then extracted from them using an Energon Transfer Device. The Insecticon Army was too powerful for the Autobots so Optimus Prime sent Cosmos, Bumblebee, and Spike to Floron III to pick up some robotic insecticide. On the way back, Cosmos was contaminated with Morphobot spores. When Cosmos returned to Earth, he crashed and the spores rapidly spread an infestation of Morphobots to a valley. Megatron warned the Insecticons not to come near the valley because they were vulnerable to the robotic insecticide. The Insecticons reasoned that Megatron was lying to them to keep them away from some source of energy and went to the valley anyway. Megatron had destroyed the robotic insecticide, but when the Insecticons saw the Morphobots they thought they would make a good source of energy and the entire Insecticon Army descended for what they thought would be a feast. The Morphobots feasted on the clones instead. Only the Insecticons themselves made it out alive. The Revenge of Bruticus Under the command of Megatron, the Insecticons and some clones were eating a city. The Protectobots evacuated the city, allowing the Autobots to destroy all the clones. Logs 2012 * October 29 - "What's Up with 'Cap?" - Blaster and Spike discuss Hubcap's recent weird behavior, then attempt to help Jetfire and others affected by the Dweller virus * October 29 - "Beneath Kalis" - Windshear takes control of Cybertron’s Centurion Droids. Notes * The ability to create clones in their own image is a trait given to the Insecticons by the cartoon. It therefore did not appear in the Marvel comics, but has come to be a standard for the depiction of the Insecticons in later fiction. The IDW comics deviated the most with their interpretation of the "Insecticon clones" as being failed attempts to create proper Insecticons. * Both the e-Hobby and the Descent into Evil bios state that cloning is an ability possessed by "Insecticons". Therefore, it is possible that the Deluxe Insecticons (Barrage, Chop Shop, Ransack, and Venom) are also capable of self-replicating. In case of the e-Hobby bios, the Deluxe Insecticons might not have been meant to be included by virtue of them not existing in the Japanese version of Generation 1. On the other hand, e-Hobby occasionally referenced Western Transformers material, so...just take your pick. On the MUX, Deluxe Insecticons are able to create clones, and each Insecticon player is allowed one "clone" object to represent the swarm. * A theory of the fandom to explain the steady numbers of the cannonfodder known as the Sweeps (and to a lesser extent, the Armada) is that they can be restored the same way Insecticon clones can, since the Insecticons (possibly) were among the Decepticons recycled by Unicron. References Category:Clones Category:DCs Category:Decepticons Category:drones Category:Insecticons Category:Mass-produced Transformers